IRELAND MAY PAY A HEAVY PRICE FOR McCLEAN’S CANDOUR
Derryman’s true worth will be painfully clear if he gets a suspension
PUT it down to tall poppy syndrome. It is not footballing brilliance that has elevated James McClean among his peers and made him such an obvious target for hate and loathing, however. It is gumption.
And that same characteristic is what has made McClean so important to the Ireland of Martin O’Neill. He is so crucial, in fact, that news of an investigation into his intemperate comments about the match referee following the 1-1 draw with Austria could be one of the most significant developments in the World Cup qualifying campaign.
The referee, Spaniard David Borbalan, was correct in disallowing Shane Duffy’s goal in that game, but he was wrong in not awarding Ireland a penalty. In accusing him of being Austria’s 12th man, McClean was out or order and could now pay with a ban of two games or longer.
His critics – and they are legion – will argue this is another instance of McClean surrendering to hotheadedness. What he said about Borbalan was foolish and may carry a heavy sanction, but the time has passed since McClean could be neatly caricatured as trouble.
It is, rather, his reliability and sense of responsibility that will be missed should he be suspended for the coming games against Georgia and Serbia.
There hasn’t been an Irishman so misunderstood in English soccer since Roy Keane was at his best. Keane was portrayed by sections of the press there – and parts of it here – as a bristling troublemaker, a talent with no secure hold on his temper, as little more than an animal at times.
Some of these representations would have sat comfortably beside the racism that passed for coverage of Ireland in earlier, sorrier decades.
McClean has received that treatment. Worse, he has been targeted for having the cheek to believe in something beyond the soccer pitch and to actually publicly defend his position.
Poppies have been problematic. The mania that seizes parts of Britain every autumn over the wearing of the flower as a symbol of its war dead is astonishing to behold. Remembering the dead is not enough; being seen to mourn them is even more important.
For weeks and weeks TV presenters daren’t stand before a camera without a big flower on their lapel. Soccer shirts now bear the poppy in the middle of the chest. The new season will not be long underway until they start appearing.
McClean’s decision to refuse to wear a shirt with a poppy reduces certain British commentators to frothing rage. When he was a Wigan player, McClean famously wrote to the club’s chairman at the time, Dave Whelan, explaining why he could not do so.
Ever since then, he has been booed at grounds across England.
If it bothers him, he internalises the turmoil because it does not appear to affect his play.
His club problems have been more prosaic than political of late, as last season 21 of his 34 league appearances were as a substitute. At the end of last year, though, he signed a new contract tying him to the club until 2019.
In the baldest of terms, he is a middling player at a middling club; West Brom paid £1.5 million for him in June 2015. That is the modern-day equivalent of a bag of balls and new tracksuits.
But, in Ireland terms, he is now the side’s most effective offensive outlet. He has scored three goals in qualifying so far, including the winning one in Vienna.
Martin O’Neill recognises that there is little craft available to him beyond Wes Hoolahan, and so emphasises the importance of endeavour. As a result, the importance of his countyman McClean is understood.
With Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick in rotten form and Jonathan Walters less influential than he was in the qualifying odyssey for the European Championships, McClean is vital to how the side plays.
Therefore the notion of going to Georgia on September 2 or playing the Serbs in Dublin three days later without him is an alarming one. He can have no argument if FIFA, as expected, suspend him and O’Neill.
The practical consequences of it could be disastrous, however. Against the Austrians two weeks ago, Ireland were limp and uninspired, McClean included. If he was off that day, he is more likely than most to be on when needed.
His lapse into indiscipline threatens to bring with it a painful and costly reminder of how much his country needs him.